There is an established need for providing assurance of thorough and complete sterilization of medical equipment such as syringes, sutures, catheters, swabs, blood transfusion sets, petri dishes, scalpels and surgical gloves. These items have been routinely sterilized by cobalt 60 radiation. In addition it is useful to irradiate various food items with cobalt 60 radiation to retard spoilage and to assure that such products remain salable over a significant time period.
Because of danger of radiation damage to personnel, facilities for effecting the radiation have necessarily incorporated heavy shielded walls, floors and ceilings, which typically has required a separate building. To move the medical supplies or food items relative the radiation sources, expensive conveyor systems have been used. This combination of a separate building and an expensive conveyor system has resulted in a very costly installation. There is therefore a need for a simpler and less costly installation for providing process irradiation.